There is not much commendable to
record about the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.However,
there is evidence that citizens enforced to stay at home
are discovering new hobbies, new neighbourliness and new
patterns of life.I
too wanted to make this period of self-isolation count in
some useful ways.What
to do?Learn the
cello (impossible), Welsh (unlikely), juggling (possible),
or what about a bash at boosting my appalling grasp of
history (likely)?Of
all the holes in my education, history is the gaping
chasm.My excuse is
that between my two secondary schools I studied the
Egyptians, the Romans and then the Second World War.In
most conversations about antiquity I can legitimately
excuse myself claiming that it is ‘not my period’.

I also never really got on with
history.I liked hard
science - history was a bit woolly.Why
look back at old stuff?Science
was about the new stuff.My
dislike of the subject was cemented by an incident in form
3A at Reading School.The
history teacher, Mr ‘Bowlegs’ Bowyer, set the class
reading a chapter from the set book while I sneakily read
the latest edition of theNew Musical
Express, the teenage-laudedNME.‘Bowlegs’
caught me, rolled up the newspaper, swiped me round the
head with it and then confiscated it.I
hated both him and his subject as only a stupid
14-year-old can do.

Sixty years later, I came across
Andrew Gimson’s book,Kings &
Queens.Who
could object to a survey of ten centuries of English
history in just 240 pages?Who
could object to its terse introductory style statement,
‘The story opens with an illegal immigrant, William the
Conqueror’?This is
my kind of history, amusing history - the very model of a
modern oxymoron.

And so this majestic kaleidoscope
begins with William I (1066-1087) and marches through the
Henrys, Edwards, Georges and several others, up to
Elizabeth II (1952-20??).All
those distant dynasties such as the Normans, Plantagenets,
Tudors, Stuarts, right up to the Windsors.Who
are these suzerain people?I
should know, but regrettably I don’t.

The following is not so much a
review of the book, but more my chronological aide-mémoire
to these Ks & Qs.It
is history old skool.It
is my facts-and-figures style of history in just seven lines
per monarch – myregal heptastichs
(no, me neither). Alas, while that
structure worked well on my PC in Word Arial 12, it
annoyingly collapsed on my website in SeaMonkey Verdana
Small. The structure is therefore now perhaps better
described, though more prosaically so, as just 87 words
per monarch. No matter, they are still mostly
Gimson’s original comments condensed by me–my
paraphrase of his synopsis.Itis
therefore a rather personal choice and not to be held in
great store by anyone.But,
at least, there is none of that empathetic malarkey –
'Describe how you would feel if told you were one of Charles
II’s illegitimate children.'On
the other hand, the selection is quite quirky, with probably
too much emphasis on the monarchs’ spouses, their fecundity
and heights.But that’s
me.

So to start.First,
a little context. Edward the Confessor, the son of
Aethelred the Unready and his second wife, Emma of
Normandy, was the last Anglo-Saxon king of England and
he ruled from 1042 until 1066. He had spent much
of his early life in Normandy living under the
protection of the Dukes of Normandy while the Danes
ruled England. Edward is regarded as a gentle and
peaceable man, yet his death sparked one of the
bloodiest periods in English history as rival claimants
to the crown of England battled it out.

The
NormansWilliam I, aka the Conqueror,the
reddish-haired, five-foot ten-inches warriorhad, in 1051, married the tiny, four-foot tall
Matilda.She bore him
nine children.In
1066, the brutal and illiterate William landed in England
and by the Battle of Hastings became master of 1.5 million
inhabitants, wiped out the ruling class and installed
French as the governing language.William’s
third greatest feat was the instigation of the Domesday
Book recording landholdings down to the last acre and the
last pig – ugh, bureaucracy!

William II,
William Rufus, one of William I's sons, was next
from 1087.He had a
red face, yellow hair, different-coloured eyes and a
stutter, especially when angry.He
never married, fathered no children and apparently
preferred attractive young male courtiers.He
ravaged the possessions of the Church, then became ill,
then repented, then recovered, then became as intolerable
as before.In 1100,
he was murdered while hunting in the New Forest.It
was said, ‘He was loathsome to almost all people, and
abominable to God.’

Henry I, another of the
Conqueror’s sons, seized the day when William was killed
and three days later grabbed the crown.He
did some good – he laid the foundation of Magna Carta.And
some bad – he had many illegitimate children.He
was a competent administrator, well-educated and he spoke
English.A yard was
henceforth defined as the distance from Henry’s nose to
his outstretched thumb.He
married another Matilda and had a daughter, yet another
Matilda.In 1135, he
died after eating a glut of lampreys, perhaps!

Stephenof
Boulogne, Matilda’s cousin, sailed to England
and seized the crown once Henry I was dead.He was brave, straightforward and
charming.Yet, he was
disastrously too soft both to be king and to subdue his
troublesome cousin Matilda’s claim to the crown, as well
as to control the double-dealing, castle-building, cruel
barons.The Stephen
vs. Matilda power struggle meant that England descended
into a 15-year civil war, known as The Anarchy, until
peace was restored under the 1153 Treaty of Westminster.

The
Plantagenets
Henry II, or Henry of Anjou, the first of England’s
Plantagenet (sprig of broom) kings, was Matilda’s son.His
wife was the rich and unscrupulous Eleanor of Aquitaine.She
had persuaded the pope to annul her marriage to Louis VII,
king of France.The
energetic Henry set about restoring peace and order across
his vast kingdom from Hadrian’s Wall to the Pyrenees.ThomasàBecket
became his chum and chancellor, but later his defiant
Archbishop of Canterbury and later still his inadvertently
murdered subject.

Richard I, son of Henry II
and Eleanor, the extraordinarily tall ‘Lionheart’, the
knight errant and crusader, was crowned in September 1189.On
his way to the Holy Land he stopped off at Cyprus to marry
Berengaria of Navarre.There
were no children, perhaps because Richard preferred the
battlefield, or was he gay?His
place among military heroes was ruined by his infamous
massacre of 2,700 Muslims at Acre.Having
got within 12 miles of Jerusalem, he was forced to turn
back.Richard died of
a gangrenous wound in 1199.

John, brother of Richard,
was among the most ghastly of monarchs.At
33, he married the 13-year-old Isabella of Angoulême.John
fell out, then in, with Pope Innocent III.Devious
in behaviour and unsuccessful in campaigns, he provoked
his barons and was forced to agree to Magna Carta with its
‘the right to trial by jury’ and ‘no taxation without
representation’.Ironically,
such kingly incompetence laid the foundations of English
and American civil liberties.John
died in 1216 of apoplexy after gorging on peaches and
cider.

Henry IIIwas,
in 1216, only 9 years old when hurriedly crowned with a
piece of his mother’s jewellery.A
weak, pious, but long-ruling king with an interest in
theology, he rebuilt Westminster Abbey.At
28, he married the 14-year-old Eleanor of Provence – Henry
showered her French relatives with gifts to the annoyance
of the English.By
1258, the indebted king called a Parliament to raise taxes
– the barons objected and sided with Simon de Montfort.Civil
war ensued, Henry and his son Edward were seized, then
rescued.Peace ruled.

Edward I, the formidable
warrior, aka ‘Longshanks’, crushed the rebellious baronsand asserted
the English monarch’s rule.He
heard his regal news in 1272 while in Sicily with his wife
Eleanor of Castile, whom he married when she was 10 and he
was 15 – they had at least 14 children.The
coronation celebrations lasted a fortnight.The
nationalists, the Welsh under Llewellyn of Gwynedd and the
Scots under William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, were
frequently troublesome.He
died, aged 68, en route to sorting out the latter.

Edward II, the hapless,
strong and musical king, who could swim.His
life was dominated by Piers Gaveston, the amusing Gascon
upstart, his boyhood friend and the fondest of adults.In
1308, when Edward married the 12-year-old Isabella,
daughter of Philip IV of France, Gaveston outshone
everyone by wearing the Queen’s jewellery.Hated
by the barons, they had him beheaded on the road from
Warwick to Kenilworth.Isabella
ran off with Roger Mortimer.Edward
II was forced to abdicate and then murdered in shady
circumstances.

Edward IIIbecame
king at 14, as arranged by his mother, Isabella, the
‘She-Wolf of France’ and Roger Mortimer.The
latter was captured and hanged at Tyburn.At
15, Edward III married the popular Philippa of Hainault
and they had 14 children, including the Black Prince and
John of Gaunt.Edward
kept family, noblemen and Parliament on his side.English
became the language of court.Edward,
the warlord, took Scotland and started the Hundred Years
War with France.In
1348-9, the Black Death carried off a third of Europeans.

Richard IItook
over at 10, amid cheering crowds.But
soon the hated poll tax led to the Peasants’ Revolt under
Wat Tyler.Richard
met the rebels, promised them much, but reneged.His
marriage to Anne of Bohemia was contented, but childless.He
was extravagant with no taste for war.When
Anne died, Richard’s rule became tyrannical and he married
Isabella of France when she was just 6.With
Richard in Ireland, his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, seized
the throne.Richard
II was incarcerated in Pontefract.

The
Lancastrians and Yorkists

Henry IV(Bolingbroke),
the usurper, was king though Richard II was alive, but
childless, and despite the proper heir being Edward
Mortimer.So Henry IV
enjoyed a vast coronation and was anointed with oil
supposedly given by the BVM.Henry
wooed the Church and sanctioned burning at the stake and
the extirpation of the followers of John Wycliffe (the
Lollards).Opposition
grew under Owen Glendower, Harry Hotspur and others.Henry
then suffered from painful ‘leprosy’, became a recluse,
suffered a stroke and died in 1413.

Henry V, the pious, Prince
of Wales, the English patriot.He
sought the unification of the nation, buried Richard II in
Westminster Abbey and waged war against the French.The
notable battle of Agincourt left 6,000 Frenchmen dead, but
only 400 Englishmen.He
combined the English and French crowns and married
Catherine of Valois, daughter of Charles VI of France.Hoping
to take all of France he pressed south, but fell ill and
died just outside of Paris, aged only 34.Catherine
eventually married the Welshman, Owen Tudor.

Henry VI, the king least
successful and youngest – 9 months old, knighted at 4 and
crowned at 7.He was
‘spiritual’, peace-loving and learned – he founded Eton
and King’s College, Cambridge.Joan
of Arc, the peasant girl, forced the English to retreat
from French territories and had Charles VII crowned at
Reims.She was
captured and burned and Henri II was crowned.He
married the Margaret of Anjou, but France was slipping
away – only Calais remained.Henry
showed signs of madness.The
Wars of the Roses started.

Edward IV, the Yorkist and
militarily astute king, cut the Lancastrians to pieces at
snowy Towton – Henry and Margaret fled to Scotland.He
married a commoner, Elizabeth Woodville.Edward
fell out with Warwick, so the kingmaker sought the Duke of
Clarence and then Henry VI, the Readeption, to be king,
while Edward was driven to France.On
his return in 1471, he killed Warwick, Margaret, her son
Edward, Henry VI and his brother, the latter in a butt of
malmsey wine.Edward
died after a fishing trip on the Thames.

Edward V, the 78-day king,
who was never actually crowned, was the eldest of Edward
IV’s two young sons and legitimate heirs, the Princes
Edward and Richard, who were suffocated in their beds at
the Tower of London by order of their uncle, the Lord
Protector, the future Richard III.Or
so the story goes!Edward’s
mother, Elizabeth, feared that the younger brother,
Richard, would seize power.The
brothers, Richard and Edward, met at Stony Stratford on
their way to London for a coronation, but their uncle
Richard had other ideas.

Richard III, the
hunchbacked toad and child-murderer, or the innocent king?Born
in 1452, the youngest of ten children of the Duke of York
was taken to the Low Countries as the Wars of the Roses
broke out.At 17, he
regained Carmarthen and Cardigan.In
1483, Richard and his wife Anne walked barefoot to
Westminster Abbey to be crowned – his kingship was
variously challenged.Nobody
liked him.He lost
the Battle of Bosworth Field against Henry Tudor and died
there, the last king of England to die in battle.

The
Tudors
Henry VII, born in Wales to Owen Tudor and Margaret
Beaufort, crowned on a battlefield, the first of the
Tudors – less a warlord, more an accountant.His
bodyguards were the Yeomen of the Guard.He
married Elizabeth of York and ended the Wars of the Roses
by uniting the warring houses of red Lancaster and white
York.His son, Prince
Arthur married Katherine of Aragon in 1501, but died less
than 5 months later.The
next year, Henry’s queen died after childbirth along with
their newborn daughter.He
became ill with grief.

Edward VI, the fragile
king, born to Jane Seymour at Hampton Court in 1537 and
educated by arrangement of Catherine Parr – he became an
earnest Protestant and ‘Supreme Head of the Church’ and
instigator of several Edward VI schools.John
Dudley became Duke of Northumberland and tried to stop
Edward’s sister, Mary, a devout Roman Catholic, from
gaining the throne.He
married his son to the 15-year-old Lady Jane Grey who was
proclaimed queen for just nine days.Edward
VI died of TB in 1553.

Mary I, the first and
saddest queen of England, a staunch Roman Catholic, who,
as ‘Bloody Mary’, burned 287 Protestants at the stake.Daughter
of Henry VIII and Katherine, they arranged her marriage at
the age of 2 to a French dauphin.Her
stepmother, Anne, called her ‘the cursed bastard’.Mary
was made a maid to Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth.Then
in 1554 she married Philip of Spain and feigned a phantom
pregnancy.Papal
authority was restored in England.Mary
was feared.She died
the barren queen in 1558.

Elizabeth I, on the other
hand, was loved by her people.Daughter
of Anne Boleyn, she was the last of the Tudors.Diplomatically,
the C of E remained Catholic and Protestant – ‘All can,
none must, some ought.’Would
the virgin queen marry?What
about the Earl of Leicester, ‘sweet Robin’?She
signed Mary Queen of Scots’ death warrant – the people
rejoiced.France and
Spain planned invasions.Enter
Francis Drake, who led the 1588 defeat of the Spanish
Armada.She died in
March 1603 without naming her successor.

The
Stuarts
James I, the first of the Stuart dynasty, a
slobbering and dishevelled king.At
13 months, Charles James Stuart, son of Mary, Queen of
Scots, was crowned James VI, King of Scots.He
married Anne of Denmark and had three children – Henry,
Charles and Elizabeth.He
unified England and Scotland and called them Great
Britain.He steered
an uneasyvia mediain
religion – enter the 1611 Authorised Version of the Bible,
the Pilgrim Fathers and Guy Fawkes.He
continually tussled with Parliament and lost his kingly
powers.

Charles I, the shy,
elegant, 5-foot 4-inches, stuttering king, born in
Edinburgh, beheaded in London.He
married the Catholic Henrietta Maria, sister of the King
of France – they had 9 children including Charles II and
James II.Charles
upset the Short, Long and Rump Parliamentarians.Archbishop
Laud (Old Redingensian) upset the Puritans and the
Covenanters and lost his head.Charles
sought to enter the Commons but was rebuked.Enter
Cromwell, Fairfax and the New Model Army.Charles
was executed in 1649.

The Interregnum(1649-1660),
when Oliver Cromwell declined, twice, to become king,
though installed as Lord Protector.As
the great military leader, he efficiently subdued Ireland
and defeated the Scots, Dutch and Spanish.England’s
power was at a high.How
to govern England?A
commonwealth, a republic, or a Cromwellian monarchy?Radical
ideas were afoot – enter John Milton, Thomas Hobbes,et
al.Dissension
prevented forming a republic and as Richard was unable to
emulate his father Oliver, monarchy returned.

Charles II, the lazy,
6-foot 2-inches, hedonistic wit, aka ‘the Merry Monarch’.Cromwell
died in 1558.The
1660 Restoration of the Stuarts moved the UK from
Puritanism to licentiousness.From
Holland to Scotland to England, Charles was a fugitive.The
1662 Act of Uniformity punished the Dissenters.He
married the barren Catherine of Braganza and took
mistresses including Nell Gwyn.1665,
the Great Plague. 1666, the Great Fire.He
said that Presbyterianism is ‘not a religion for
gentlemen.’He died
in 1685.

James II, a pious and
arrogant monarch.He
believed God was on his side so he ignored his subjects.He
converted to Roman Catholicism in his thirties and wanted
the UK to be RC, including all army officers, JPs, etc.At
52, in 1685, he succeeded his brother to the throne.He
married the RC, Mary of Modena.His
heirs, Mary and Anne were Protestants and the former’s
husband was William of Orange – he was invited to invade
England.In 1690 he
defeated James at the Battle of the Boyne.England
had said, No Popery.

William IIIandMary
II, the courageous, asthmatic Dutchman, aka ‘King
Billy’, and nephew of Charles II.In
1677, he married the 15-year-old and 4 inches taller,
Mary, older, yet barren, daughter of the future James II,
and the rightful heir.They
enjoyed gardening together.In
1688, William, wanting an ally against his old enemy
France, prepared to invade England.Parliament
became independent and they became constitutional
monarchs.Mary died
of smallpox – the distraught William died after his horse
stumbled on a molehill.

Anne, the last of the
Stuarts.The daughter
of James II and his first wife, Anne Hyde – a rare monarch
with a commoner parent.Anne,
as a Protestant, deserted her father and joined William.She married Prince George of Denmark – 18
pregnancies, 5 born alive, 4 died in infancy.Parliament
passed the 1701 Act of Settlement excluding Catholics from
the throne.The 1707
Act of Union joined the kingdoms of England and Scotland
into Great Britain.Tipsy
Anne, aka ‘Brandy Nan’, became severely obese.The
‘king’s evil’ ended with her.

The
Hanoverians
George I, the Anglophobic, German, Protestant king.George
preferred Hanover, yet arrived in London with no wife, but
18 cooks.He married
his first cousin, Sophia Dorothea, but she was banished
for infidelity.They
had a son and a daughter.Father
and son, Prince of Wales, hated one another – a trait of
the Hanoverians.Robert
Walpole reconciled them.The
South Sea Bubble scam inflated, then burst.The
king liked cutting out paper patterns.He
died in 1727 in Holland on his way to Hanover and was
buried there.

George II, also born
outside Great Britain.His
wife, the clever Caroline of Ansbach, though pro-Hanover,
liked England, but they hated their eldest, Frederick.At
Caroline’s death the king became inconsolable.Walpole
stuffed the government with his family.George
was a keen soldier, but England was at peace.During
the War of the Austrian Succession, he was the last king
to lead his troops.Enter
William Pitt, Robert Clive and James Wolfe.George
died in 1760, the last king interred in Westminster Abbey.

George III, king for 59
years, who lost America and went mad.Grandson
of George II and son of poor Fred, he spoke English and
never set foot in Hanover.Dominated
by his mother, he married Princess Charlotte of
Mecklenburg-Strelitz–
they had 15 children in a happy union.‘Farmer
George’ was frugal and virtuous and a devout Protestant.But
he dealt naïvely with Parliament and the American
colonists.1773,
Boston Tea Party.1776,
Declaration of Independence.With
dementia, he died in 1820.

George IV, aka‘the first gentleman of England’,
but a dissolute spendthrift. He could swear in three
languages. He secretly married Mrs Fitzherbert, a
Roman Catholic. He had nothing to do, yet the debts
mounted – £630,000 by 1795. He married, unseen,
Caroline of Brunswick and treated her, and his parents,
abominably. Caroline was loved, George was
hated. Mrs Fitzherbert returned. 1815, the
Battle of Waterloo. Britain had a global empire,
George had no heir. He was crowned in 1821 and died
in 1830, largely unmourned.

William IV, as the third
son of George III he was unlikely to be king, but neither
of his brothers produced an heir. At 13, he joined
the Royal Navy and became a chum of Horatio Nelson.
After 10 years, he tried, unsuccessfully, to be an
MP. He lived with Polly Finch and then Dorothea
Jordan, the actress, before marrying Princess Adelaide of
Saxe-Meiningen in a childless union. In 1830, George
IV died and William, aged 64, was crowned. Unrest
was rife, so the 1832 Reform Act changed the electoral
system. William died in 1837.

Victoria, majestic and
domestic, she rescued the monarchy. Born in 1819 to
Edward, fourth son of George III, and Victoria of
Saxe-Coburg, she became queen in 1837. In 1839, her
20-year-old cousin, Albert of Saxe-Coburg visited – 5 days
later she proposed! They created Balmoral Castle and
Osborne House and had 9 children. 1851, the
successful Great Exhibition. 1861, Albert died of
typhoid – Victoria was grief-stricken and withdrew.
Benjamin Disraeli as PM helped her back into public
life. She died, aged 81, in 1901.

The
Saxe-Coburg-GothasEdward VII, son of Victoria, aka ‘Bertie’, was a
charming hedonist, unlike his father. He married
Princess Alexandra of Denmark despite having several
mistresses. The Boer War weakened Britain’s European
influence, but in 1904, the Entente Cordiale. Edward
was fat and set a fashion for undoing his waistcoat’s
bottom button. Regal power declined, ceremonials
increased – enter Edward Elgar. He was a
constitutional monarch – the Commons vs. Lords conflict
over the People’s Budget brought on a 1910 fatal heart
attack.

The WindsorsGeorge V, the dutiful,
unpretentious, bearded naval officer. He married the
unsmiling Princess May of Teck, who, as queen, changed her
name to Mary. George loved to kill animals and stick
in stamps. Times were difficult – national strikes,
suffragettes, Irish civil war and then The First World
War. Anti-German feeling meant the family name was
switched to Windsor. 1924, the first Labour
government. 1925, the General Strike. 1932,
the Christmas broadcasts began. He died, aided by
his doctor, at Sandringham in 1936.

Edward VIII, aka ‘David’,
was wildly popular and trendy, but intellectually and
artistically ignorant. He was bored and neither
wine, parties, nor mistresses brought him
contentment. Crowned in 1936, he was an heir unfit
for purpose. Enter Wallis Simpson, a 38-year-old
American divorcee – Edward was besotted and determined to
marry her. He failed to separate his private life
from his public duties – he abdicated in 1936, married
Simpson in 1937, they retired to France and he died as the
Duke of Windsor in Paris in 1972.

George VI, another Albert,
aka ‘Bertie’, the stammerer with no desire to be
king. In 1909, he joined the Royal Navy. He
proposed three times to Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon – in
1923, she eventually accepted. In 1926, their first
child, Elizabeth, was born, followed by Margaret Rose in
1930. In 1937, George and Elizabeth were
crowned. In 1940, Neville Chamberlain was replaced
by Winston Churchill as PM. George was a national
pillar during the war. He died in his sleep after a
day’s shooting at Sandringham in 1952.

Elizabeth II, aka
‘Lilibet’, the dutiful queen – her motto, ‘I serve.’
In 1939, she met Prince Philip of Greece, a naval cadet,
at Dartmouth and in 1946, he proposed and she
accepted. In 1952, the Princess flew back to Britain
from Kenya as Queen Elizabeth II. Crowned in 1953 on
worldwide TV. Sadly, the hoped for royal family
fairy-tale slowly disintegrated over the next 70
years. Her life has authority, yet she is
powerless. Dogs and horses are her hobbies.
Christ is her anchor.

Charles III, William V and
George VII, the next three potential generations of
monarchy, though their regnal names may change.

In conclusion
Gimson's book is a delight – it is both instructive and
amusing. For me, it has been a lovely read during
the coronavirus lockdown and a considerable source of
knowledge and understanding. It has truly been a
history lesson-and-a-half, but then I did start from close
to historical ground zero. Moreover, my self-imposed
constriction of 87 words per monarch has been a nice test
of concision for both thought and word. And my
sincere apologies to all proper historians – the blunders
are mine.

Forty monarchs - ten centuries. Let me make four
observations. First, and shockingly, too many of our
kings and queens were not nice people. Many
were autocrats, dictators, tyrants and despots. They
killed and divorced at their pleasure and leisure.
They lied and plotted as a way of life – the good few
stand out like paragons among reprobates. Second,
our monarchs tended to be fertility radicals – they had
either no offspring or about a dozen. And mistresses
and illegitimate children were the order of the day for
many. They were certainly not models of wholesome
sexual behaviour. Third, too many monarchs gave
their offspring names the very same as their own.
Think Matildas, Henrys, Edwards, Georges and so on.
For the novice historian, confusion reigns.

Fourth, sure, our early monarchs were considered
sovereign, but reigning that involves bloodshed,
subterfuge and torment is far from righteous. Yet as
the centuries passed, so sovereign power passed from the
monarchs to Parliament. And whereas the regal line
has been fed by birth, politicians have been installed by
the electorate – the very principle of democracy.
Yet our elitist monarchy has survived and happily jogs
alongside our populist egalitarianism. Our Queen has
now become largely a figurehead, and a useful one too–though
republicans would mostly disagree. But she now has
very little control of the affairs of state and only
minimal governing authority. How long will it all
last? What a question–probably
until the twenty-second century. After all, there
are already three kingly contenders waiting in the
wings. Though the office may live on, its shape,
duties and influence will certainly change. Will our
future kings not only open Parliaments but also shopping
malls, not only ride polo ponies but also bicycles?